


and you're never coming home again

by Aramley



Category: Tennis RPF
Genre: Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-22
Updated: 2009-12-22
Packaged: 2017-10-05 00:42:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/35870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aramley/pseuds/Aramley
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-Miami 2009 comfort fic that turned out not very comforting at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and you're never coming home again

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by a conversation with [info]frogglesthefrog and the song Swans, by Unkle Bob.

Mirka says she has some calls to make, a few small errands to run, but Roger knows it's really an excuse to leave him alone for a little while. He's prickly with weariness and frustration, snappish and unpleasant. He always makes the effort not to be sharp with her, even after the worst days, but today she is being especially gentle with him, as if wary.

"Get some rest," she says, pausing a moment at the door. She looks worried, one hand trailing absently over the soft swell of her stomach. Guilt twists in Roger's gut, a fresh pain. He wants to tell her he's sorry, but she's gone before he can think of the words for it.

After she leaves, he lies down on the bed, hoping that stillness will go some way to calming the sharp jangle of his nerves, the irritation boiling just underneath his skin. He stares up at the ceiling and tries to let his mind clear to the same blank whiteness, to think of anything except the awful futility of tennis balls smacked uselessly into the net.

On the nightstand his phone chirps, and Roger reaches for it automatically. He answers without really thinking about it. He's trying not to think about anything. "Hello?"

"Roger." It's Rafa. The sound of his voice is a jolt to Roger's heart. They haven't spoken since - they haven't spoken for a while. "Are you okay?"

"I've had better days," Roger says, aiming for dry but hitting weary. Easy shots aren't the only thing he can't pull off today, it seems.

"I watch your match," Rafa says. "You smash your racket."

Roger puts a hand over his eyes. He's never going to hear the end of that, ever. "Yeah."

"Is not like you."

"Yeah well," Roger shifts a little bit on the bed. "I don't really feel like me right now."

Rafa is quiet then. Roger listens to his soft breathing crackle down the line, and tries not to think about Rafa's breath warm against his cheek or the hollow of his neck all those times they lay together, sweat-slick and sated after sex.

"Rafa," he says at last. "Rafa, I miss you."

"Roger," Rafa breathes, his voice thick. "Don't. Please."

"I miss you," Roger says, like he can't help himself. Rafa's voice is so close against his ear, so close, throwing into sharp relief the distance between them, the physical distance and the other.

"We agree," Rafa says, low. "You and me, we agree this is for the best. For Mirka, for baby. For you."

Roger shoves his hand up into his hair, gripping just hard enough that his scalp stings a little. He looks up at the ceiling, the blank white expanse. He can remember the taste of Rafa's mouth. "And for you, Rafa?"

Rafa makes a soft huffing noise, half laugh, half sigh. "You see me on court, no? This whole tournament I cannot think, I cannot play. You do this to me. So, maybe best for me, too. Yes."

"Then why did you call?" He hates the sound of his own voice, low and rough with frustration and need.

"Because I worry," Rafa says. "Because I miss you. Because - I love you."

Roger shuts his eyes again. "You're not making things any easier."

"No," Rafa says. "Hurts to hear your voice, hurts to see you. Hurts to not. Is nothing easy about you and me, Roger, never was."

"I'm sorry."

"No." Rafa sighs down the line. "Don't be."

"I wish -" Roger breaks off. He doesn't know what he wishes, he doesn't know what he wants. He wants so many things. He wants Rafa and he wants Mirka, he wants to be a good boyfriend and a good father and a good tennis player and he wants the fourteenth Slam and more, and maybe all of these things are mutually incompatible, but they sit heavy in his heart and mind, and he knows that he's faltering under the weight of them.

"I wish you were here," he says at last, because it's true. He misses Rafa physically, like an ache.

"I wish I could be there," Rafa says, so low and heartfelt that for a second Roger thinks,_ to hell with it_. He'll ask Rafa to come to his room, they'll fuck. He'll have Rafa under his hands and mouth and for a while, nothing else will matter. Not Mirka or losing or anything except their bodies together.

"Roger," Rafa says quietly, after a moment. "Don't ask me."

"How did you -?"

Rafa lets out a soft little laugh. "Roger, when you think I can hear it."

That twists a wry smile out of Roger. "Am I that obvious?"

"Yes," Rafa says, and then, after a second or two's silence, "if you ask me, I come. But it no help anything. It no change anything."

"I know," Roger says, past a strange and uncomfortable tightness in his throat. "I know."

A pause stretches out between them. Roger feels strangely drained, a heavy sort of numbness settling over him, dulling the day's various aches and pains. It's dark outside.

"When are you leaving?" he asks Rafa, at last.

"Tonight," Rafa says. "I go back to Mallorca. I rest some days, then train for clay. What are you going to do now, Roger?"

There don't seem to be any questions that aren't shot through with meaning anymore. "I don't know," Roger says. "I need to think about things. About my tennis and - a lot of things."

"Roger," Rafa says. "Be happy, no?"

Roger attempts a smile, even though Rafa can't see it. "I'm going to try, Rafa," he says. "I'm going to try."


End file.
